A conversation has unfolded on social media—and God help us all—it has the audacity to be about the concept of being “woke,” “staying woke,” and all matters “wokeness”-related. This idea of staying woke was created by Black people and until recent years was regarded exclusively in our communities as a word of warning form sister to sister, brother to brother. Keep your head on the swivel. Be on the lookout for racism in disguise, racial profiling in disguise, white supremacist messaging in disguise. Stay vigilant. Stay educated. Stay woke. Vox magazine writer Aja Romano narrowed down the originating use of the phrase to the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 after police expressed discontentment with Brown walking in the street. Romano wrote that «'stay woke' suddenly became the cautionary watchword of Black Lives Matter activists on the streets, used in a chilling and specific context: keeping watch for police brutality and unjust police tactics.» Then like many a phrase before it, white people caught on to the warning and ruined it. The challenge to stay woke, or to educate yourself on injustices hidden in plain sight—like police brutality—became isolating reminders to some that not only were they uneducated, but uncool and incapable of keeping up with popular lingo, Black lingo. So they have apparently retreated to that warm and cozy place of resenting Black people, America’s favorite scapegoat.  Read more